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British luxury car maker Jaguar is cranking up its publicity machine to make sure the spotlight is turned on for the launch of its new small sedan, the XE, which it plans to launch in Europe early next year and in the U.S. a year later.

All summer Jaguar, part of Tata of India owned Jaguar Land Rover, has been publishing tasty snippets of information about the new car and teaser photographs. The XE has perhaps the toughest task in the automotive industry; steal sales from the German masters BMW, and Mercedes in the small luxury segment.

To succeed, the new XE will not only have to be world class technically, but it must also be stunningly handsome to give buyers of these pricey little cars a compelling reason to desert the Germans.

Jaguar said it will finally unveil the new car, which will compete with the BMW 3 series, Audi A4 and Mercedes C class, in London on September 8, and parade it in front of public for the first time at the Paris Car Show in October.

The XE will feature light-weight aluminum construction. It will have new, small but powerful fuel efficient turbo-charged four cylinder diesel and gasoline engines. Later, expect a gasoline-electric or a diesel-electric hybrid.

Hype and bluster is gaining momentum.

Singer songwriter Emile Sande with the Jaguar XE

“The XE combines thrilling performance, agile handling and precise, responsive steering, with outstanding levels of refinement. Jaguar will bring levels of innovation never seen before in this segment – with its lightweight construction expertise and sophisticated chassis technology in addition to the new family of Ingenium engines,” Jaguar said.

The XE uses what Jaguar calls “integral link suspension”, said to deliver major benefits over conventional multi-link designs. Many components of the integral link suspension have been forged or hollow-cast in aluminum. The design is based on Jaguar’s flagship F-type sports car. It has the latest generation electric power assisted steering.

Jaguar will be the first JLR vehicle to use the Ingenium four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines, the first motors to be designed and built in-house since Tata bought the company from Co in 2008. Previously, most JLR engines came from Ford.

The XE is big on connectivity and it will have the latest laser head-up display. Jaguar says the XE will be a moving Wi-Fi machine allowing connectivity for many devices.

Jaguar Land Rover is on a roll at the moment. According to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisberg-Essen in Germany, JLR has been the most successful global automotive company in the past four years. Last year it sold 425,000 cars around the world, and by the end of 2014 will have increased sales by 214 per cent since 2010. JLR earned an 11 per cent return on sales last year, making it more profitable than ’s Mercedes and on a par with BMW and Audi, which is owned by Volkswagen. JLR products include the big Jaguar XJ, mid-sized XF, big luxurious SUVs like the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, and more utilitarian 4x4s like the Discovery and Defender.

As it faces down the German competition, JLR will raise its spending on product development to between $6.0 billion and $6.4 billion for 2015, up from $4.7 billion in 2013 and $3.4 billion in 2012.

Jaguar sold about 75,000 cars last year. Analysts see XE sales alone rising to 100,000 in the first full year and perhaps reaching or exceeding 200,000 by 2020.

The XE sedan must be a big seller. If it fails, this will undermine the whole Jaguar Land Rover project. When the covers come off the XE on September 8 in London if the looks of the car don’t raise buyers’ pulse rates, the project will crash and burn, so expect to be excited, or maybe even moved.